De Regno Christi

Dear Bill, I think you might like these (with thanks to Liberty Fund for publishing Otis’s two volume history of the American Revolution).  I hear some Livy and some Puritan Divines in here: “Though the name of liberty delights the ear, and tickles the fond pride of man, it is a jewel much oftener the [...]

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Dear Gerald, It’s wonderful to have your post here–thanks very much for joining in the discussion.  And, not surprisingly, you ask a vital question.  There are certainly parallels between today and the time period immediately preceding the American Revolution, to be sure.  Unfortunately, our own populist revolt at the moment is decentralized, leaderless, and, seemingly, [...]

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All, I am very pleased to be joining in the discussion of Brad’s excellent book. Work has not allowed me to comment until now, but I have read the preceding posts. What struck me was Brad’s description of the hindrances to public life faced by Catholics at the time, and that got me thinking about [...]

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Dear Bill and Kevin, The founders often talked in terms of virtue, tied to liberty.  Indeed, virtue without liberty could not be virtue at all, and liberty without virtue merely meant license. In this belief, the founders were VERY western.  Tvirtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance appear first in Plato’s Symposium.  In the dialogue, [...]

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A recurrent theme in the life of Charles Carroll is the union of liberty and virtue.  How does a Republic preserve virtue?  What happens when public virtue declines? Any thoughts?

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Thank you, Bill, for this opportunity to debate the merits of Charles Carroll and his contributions to the American founding. As it turns out, I’ve spent nearly the entire day in an archive going through letters and debates from the 1950s, so my mind (and hopefully my soul) were somewhere a half decade in the [...]

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One thing is clear.  Charles Carroll was a Whig.  This was something of a surprise, although I am not sure why.  The American Founders where Whigs to a man.  Some were Old Whigs, some were New Whigs, but all were Whigs.  This was a fascinating realization for a Covenanter who normally identifies the 17th and [...]

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I want to start off our book discussion by saying thank you to Brad for  his excellent biography of Charles Carroll and for being willing to subject himself to the DRC peanut gallery.  Thanks Brad! Also, I think it is appropriate to extend our thanks to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute for allowing us the opportunity [...]

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First, I would like to thank Bill for his clarification that he does not consider me a Pelagian. Pelagius and I never got along very well. I can see the possibility of my observations being misread–that somehow I was denying the effects of the Fall. Bill accurately surmises that this is not my position and [...]

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In the great DRC tradition, I am happy to announce that next week we will begin a discussion of DRC editor/contributor Brad Birzer’s new book American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll.  Brad’s excellent biography of the forgotten Founding Father is published by ISI as part of their lives of the founders series.  If you [...]

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